Sunday, July 17, 2011

James Durbin continues to engage fans with his vocal range and stage performances, as the American Idol rocker tops this week’s hennemusic Hot 10.

Durbin is out playing arenas on the Idol summer tour, which features the Top 11 contestants from the reality music series/contest as they hit more than 40 cities across North America.

James is performing songs by Muse and Guns N’ Roses in his short set, in addition to his duties joining other Idol singers for medleys and various tracks. Durbin fans continue to report that James is stealing the show each night, much as he did every single week on tv.

The HH10 is a list of the most-viewed rock news stories in the past week by hennemusic readers.

In other rock news this past week, there continues to be great attention paid to the upcoming Van Halen release, the band’s first with David Lee Roth since 1984. Sevendust drummer Morgan Rose is among the few who have heard it, and he raves about the new project – that story comes in at #2 amongst hennemusic readers. Producer/engineer Ross Hogarth’s recent comments about the album – more raves, naturally – land in the #9 spot.

Lots of Metallica this week, as we tracked down video of the band warming up for their July 8 show at Sonisphere UK in the back of a truck, of all places – that’s #3, followed by video of Metallica rocking Halifax on Thursday, in at #4; and lastly, at #10, a week-old item featuring the full Metallica set from the Big 4 show in Sweden on July 3 – you can check out all 18 songs as the band rocked Ullevi Stadium in Gothenburg.

Other big news among hennemusic readers included Motley Crue’s Vince Neil sharing his thoughts on the band’s status after 30 years in the business (#5); a new Sebastian Bach single is due next month (#6); Jimmy Page comes out of seclusion to jam with The Black Crowes in London (#7); and, a sneak preview of the new Chickenfoot single, “Big Foot,” comes in at #8.